A do-it-yourself guide for getting rid of just about anything.

Best Ways to Get Rid of Stress

Modified on July 17, 2016

How to get rid of stress is not an easy topic to write about. It’s not easy to reduce stress because reducing stress would imply knowing that stress is there, but stress is that scentless, tasteless poison you don’t know you’ve ingested too much of until you start to see the symptoms–really a cocktail of physical and hormonal reactions to an overwhelming sense of nervousness. It isn’t healthy.

Gritting your teeth, tightness in your chest, headaches, lack of concentration, pains in strange places, muscle twitching, muscle cramps, blurred vision, and even panic attacks are all symptoms of someone who is dealing with too much stress. So, what to do about stress? Well, here are some suggestions from a person who’s dealt with an anxiety disorder for the past several years. It’s difficult at times, but getting rid of stress will alleviate a lot of these symptoms.

Stress Symptoms

Headaches

Hiccups

Chest Pain

Fatigue

Diminished sex drive

Upset stomach

Anxiety

Nausea

Sadness

Depression

Restlessness

Generalized pain

Muscle cramps

Weight loss & weight gain

Just about everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Why stress relief?

Stress can play a major part in getting heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, anxiety attacks, depression, and a lot of other illnesses. People under a lot of stress tend to have weaker immune systems, thus becoming more susceptible to disease than people with normal amounts of stress. Often times people turn to alcohol, drugs, overeating, tobacco, and suicide because of stress. The fact is, stress kills.

Best Ways to Manage Stress

Productivity and activity will help reduce stress, as long as it’s for yourself. I’m not much of an exercise buff, but I know it helps to just get up and do something in the morning, to workout the stress you’ve built up over the last day. Some people go for a bike ride. Some people go for a run. I prefer lifting weights or doing a little writing. Do something for yourself in the morning that is either mentally or physically beneficial to you. Maybe Yoga? Or if you want to try something out at home, Amazon has quite a few beginners exercise videos that you can get, most of them free with a Prime Membership.

Writing a to-do list will help reduce stress. A lack of concentration can be caused by stress, and a lack of concentration will inevitably cause you to forget even the most basic things. One of the most effective stress management activities you can do is sit down and try to think about the most important things that need to be accomplished that day–and then do them. Also, throw an item on your list that involves doing something nice for someone special. Doing something nice for someone everyday is guaranteed to relieve some social stresses.

Learning to communicate with others effectively will reduce stress. When ideas or emotions are left unsaid, they tend to stew in our minds, causing us to say stupid or thoughtless things in order to avoid what’s really on our minds. If you’re sincere and honest (and friendly) with the people around you, either at work or at home, people will learn to respect you feelings and opinions: no more drama caused by misunderstandings.

Relieving yourself of bad habits like smoking and drinking will reduce your stress dramatically. Bad habits cause more stress than anything else. Once you stop abusing your body there will be no more worrying about lung cancer, emphysema, liver disease, stomach cancer, sclerosis of the liver, and pancreatitis. Don’t forget that a poor diet is as much a bad habit as smoking or drinking, so balance those meals and eat more produce.

Depression and anxiety medication will relieve the symptoms, but not the stress. Sometimes medications like Prozac and Xanax can help a person who has stresses that are or seem to be unsolvable—and I do use a drug called Lorazepam on occasion to help relieve the symptoms of stress (anxiety and panic attacks). But one must realize that these solutions are only temporary; taking time out for yourself and changing your lifestyle is the only permanent solution, and you may want to discuss it with a life coach.

Therapy and Counseling for Stress

A personal therapist can help you find ways to resolve those issues that are causing you stress. You know those points in a conversation with your average friend or coworker where you’d like to expound on the problems caused to you by some other person or entity, but you don’t want to feed the rumor mill? And this problem has been eating you from the inside out for the past few weeks, and all you can do is think about it, worry about it, but never actually tell someone what it is because you don’t want them to know what it is your worried about or you don’t want them to worry about it either? We all have these episodes. That’s what stress is all about—not letting things go, not letting things out, not talking to someone about those things.

This is why a therapist and mental health counseling exists: to listen to us and to help us relieve some of our stress by getting those things off our chest that will do more damage to us physically than existentially. Therapists help us deal with the stress by being that disinterested (ie. unbiased) third party who will offer advice and strategy only when you ask them. Think of therapists as that one friend you never had who would listen to all of your problems and never offer a piece of advice unless it were explicitly solicited from them. Hell, my therapist and I hardly talk about stress at all anymore; our conversations as of late have more to do with our mutual contempt for certain kinds of (dumb) people than my own personal issues—and that’s fine.

Make friends with your therapist. If you can’t make friends with them, don’t be ashamed or afraid to deny their services. Find another therapist who is more akin to your personality. Therapists may not be able to take you out to lunch or show you a good time, or be social with you outside of their work, but someone that’s willing to listen, besides your mother, is only a phone call away—and that can make a world of difference to a person with a lot of stress in their life. So, don’t be afraid to try therapy.

Natural Treatments for Stress

Eating natural, fresh foods can reduce stress because, if you think about it, what do a lot of Americans worry about? Medical problems, health problems, dietary problems. Save yourself the stress and buy organic food knowing that you’re sparing yourself the chance of contracting some terrible disease by ingesting the chemicals they put in “ordinary foods.” Sure, it’s a little more expensive, but wouldn’t it be nice to eat a piece of chicken without worrying about steroids or the super-bacteria that incubate in animals treated with antibiotics? Moreover, they don’t make a lot of organic junk food, so you’ll be snacking less, which means you won’t be stressing out about your belly.